Richard Lanham’s What’s Next For Text, was, basically, a discussion about the ways that graphic design in the digital age has changed the ways that read and interact with text.

Page 8 of this reading was most interesting to me because it reminded me of a website that was recently introduced to me.

Prezi is a website where users can make their own interactive presentations by creating paths between areas of text, images or video. The job application seen on Page Eight struck me as an ugly, half-assed, retro version of what Prezi users can create today.

While I haven’t spent much time on the site so far, I feel that it shows exactly what the author is trying to depict by showing the job application video.

The digitalization of text allows for boring documents, like resumes, job applications, legal texts and others, to breathe. Applications like Prezi allow users to interact with text in a way that makes reading more interesting and even fun.

Likewise, as we see throughout What’s Next For Text, readers are no longer required to read text in one uniform direction (left to right) with graphics, we can read text in many different directions. This allows for a graphic designer, or anyone else who might study typography, to play with text in ways that may not have been thought possible just a few decades ago.

All in all, the digitalization of text creates a much more interesting experience for writers and readers alike.